The long term effects of Big Ben’s face plant.

don’t know if anyone has heard, but the erstwhile QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers got into some sort of accident this week. There wasn’t much about it on the news, so I felt compelled to call attention to this little publicized event.

Apparently, someone pulled out in front of him and he hit the broad side of the vehicle. This is a common accident as car drivers pay little attention to riders. Many fatal bike accidents involving cars happen this way.¹

 Gargantuan  Ben’s hubris in his past conversations on helmet use has made this particular issue a buzz bomb. On an interview with ESPN, the 24 hour, self congratulatory sports network that brought you Bonds on Bonds and Stuart Scott’s cliché party, Rothlisberger said “It's not the law. If it was the law, I'd definitely have one on every time I rode. But it's the law and I know I don't have to and you're just more free when you're out there with no helmet on.”

What’s the price of freedom?  A broken jaw, a 9-inch laceration to the back of his head, 9 or more lost or chipped teeth and injuries to his knees from hitting the pavement apparently, although I always thought it was a buck o’five. Except for the knee injuries, which were apparently minor, all of these injuries would have been prevented by a full face helmet. I personally would rather have the face.

This lumbering he-beast also goes on to say “I think it (motorcycling) can be a risk. It depends on how you ride. I don't ride a sport bike. If I'm riding a sport bike and trying to do tricks, and going 200 miles down the highway, that's probably pretty stupid. But when you're riding a Harley or a chopper and you're riding with a group of people and you're not on the highway and you're cruising, you're relaxing. I don't think its as much of a risk as people make it out to be.”

What does he do when he gets a Hayabusa? Yup, crashes. Sport bikes can’t seem to stand up in the media for falling down. Never mind the accident occurred at relatively low speeds, never mind that the driver of the car seems to be at fault and never mind  that this could have happened on any type of bike. Somehow, the sight of broken fairings seems to excite the media. It get’s people all lathered up about them dern Rice rockets! These mindless killers on wheels seem to invite misery upon themselves from a PR perspective. A lot of it, we do to ourselves.

Lemme splain myself here.  We fear and worship the accident. The best selling DVDs are stunting DVDs and featured prominently in these vids are near death experiences, crashes and general tomfoolery. I like watching a good wheelie stoppie. I don’t like watching someone do it on the shoulder of a public highway during rush hour. This is the public’s image of us. Old Summer Teeth (Rothlisbergerbaumsteinsmithman) even used this as an example to defend his beliefs. Truth is, all types of bikes are involved in fatal accidents, we just tend to be a little more spectacular. We also don’t seem to have the relaxed image of the cruiser crowd.

Secondly, we don’t defend ourselves against this view. Some of us embrace it. If I had a dollar for every guy who talked about the thrill of being so dangerous on a sport bike I would be far richer than I am. Many think this will impress people, pick up the opposite sex or even get them respect for being daredevils. This is what we call a bad image. Riding your bike for these issues is what’s called low self esteem. You’re riding for the wrong reasons.

We need to present an image that’s more positive to the non-riding public and even to the *gasp* cruiser riding community. I would sooner gnaw off my own leg, starting at the shoulder, than ride a cruiser. Not because I hate the cruiser, just because it’s not my thing. What cruisers have over us, in spades, is a positive public image. The marketing machine that is Harley has helped make cruisers acceptable to the main stream, and that is admirable. We see stars, politicians and average joes riding them without garnering the derision that sport bikes do. This actually makes the public oblivious to the crash statistics in which cruisers are well represented. Regardless of the truth, it’s the “safe” alternative.

Until we promote ourselves as good people, we will continue to have idiots, like Humongous Ben, use us as an excuse for their own lack of mental capacity. I can’t wait until he comes out of the hospital and blames the bike. Care to bet me on this?

“Gigantic” Ben interview http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2481004

1.“50% of  collision accidents, the driver of the other vehicle was judged to have made the primary error that caused the crash, and that driver failed to "perceive" the motorcyclist in 70 percent of the two-vehicle collisions”- MAIDS report